DA Investigating White Supremacists Gunned Down

(CNN) -- A prosecutor was gunned down outside a Texas courthouse Thursday morning, a law enforcement source with knowledge of the shooting said.

Mark Hasse is an assistant district attorney for Kaufman County and had earlier worked for the district attorney's office in adjacent Dallas County, the source told CNN.

According to local news reports, multiple suspects "ambushed" Hasse in a parking lot this morning and are currently on the loose. And at this point it's only speculation, but it's possible his investigation of the Aryan Brotherhood may have been a factor.

Kaufman County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Pat Laney said the suspects ambushed the assistant DA on his way in to court and shot him multiple times in a parking lot at about 8:50 a.m. They then fled the scene. The courthouse was locked down and later closed for the day. [...]

[H]ours after Hasse was gunned down, the Department of Justice issued a release on its website crediting the Kaufman County District Attorney's Office with helping investigate two known members of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas gang. They pled guilty the day of the shooting to racketeering charges.

Before the release was issued, The Dallas Morning News credited "authorities with knowledge of the assistant DA's caseload" as saying he was "heavily involved" in an investigation of the Aryan Brotherhood. According to the release, Ben Christian Dillon, aka "Tuff", of Houston, and James Marshall Meldrum, aka "Dirty", both "agreed to commit multiple acts of murder, robbery, arson, kidnapping and narcotics tracking" for the Aryan Brotherhood.

ATLANTA -- A 14-year-old student was shot outside an Atlanta middle school Thursday afternoon and another student was taken into custody, according to Atlanta police.

Atlanta police responded to a report of a shooting at 1:50 p.m. at Price Middle School in southeast Atlanta and found the 14-year-old shot in the head, police said in a statement. [...]

The school was still on lockdown at 3:25 p.m. ET and worried parents who rushed to the school were told by a school official that all other students were safe. nearby Carver High School and Slater Elementary School were also locked down, WXIA says.

It's depressing that I need to begin curating a "school shooting" tagline.